


These Scars We Kiss

by rachel614 (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Pillow Talk, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 12:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17663018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/rachel614
Summary: This man, she thought, understood scars, and the memories they could hold.-------------------Molly talks about a bad time in her past. Sherlock listens.Rated T for context and subject matter of the conversation. Please note the tags. Non-explicit.





	These Scars We Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> This is a thing I wrote about three weeks ago, and finally typed up.

After their first time together, Molly lay back on the bed in drowsy contentment, while Sherlock gently explored every inch of her body.

She knew the moment he found the thin white scars on the inside of her upper left thigh. Her breath caught as his sensitive fingers stilled, and time seemed suspended in the silence as all drowsiness fled and she waited for him to ask. Instead, after a long moment, he continued his exploration, his touch—if it were possible—even more tender than before. Molly breathed again, and thought about scars, and about the man currently caressing the soft skin in the crook of her knee.

She thought about the web of thin white lines crisscrossing his back. The round, puckered knot, just over his heart. The still livid track marks running down his left forearm, which she knew with a pathologist’s precision would never entirely fade.

This man, she thought, understood scars, and the memories they could hold.

 

“It was secondary school. Just after my dad died.” Sherlock didn’t say anything, didn’t pause the motion of his hands. But she knew he was listening intently. “Haven’t thought about them in years, really. They’re old, and not in a place I have to see when I wash. Most of my boyfriends never noticed, honestly.”

“Tom?” She smiled weakly, feeling the old rush of guilt. Then she set it aside, firmly. She couldn’t take back her first yes, but she knew she’d done right when she ended it. Still, she let out a little sad sigh.

“Yes, actually. But he didn’t know what they were. Thought they might be from a surgery.”

“Did you tell him?”

“No. I envied his ignorance.” Sherlock hummed a bit, and allowed silence to fall for a while.

“What changed?” He asked eventually. She sighed again, remembering.

“I met this old man. He was really quite ancient—in his nineties, I think. All grizzled and stooped over. He was a priest, actually, but I don’t think he ever spoke about God or anything. Maybe he recognized that at that point I would have spat in his face and run off. Anyway, he just sort of looked at me, and said, ‘You’re too young to kill yourself, girl.’ I was pretty shaken up. No one’d realized how badly off I was, you see. I’d kept my marks up, kept eating, all that. And this guy just looked at me, and knew.” She fell silent, then continued more slowly, “I don’t think it was like you. A deduction, I mean. I think he’d just seen enough in all those years to understand. To recognize someone who was drowning in their own pain.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much, really. Just that suicide was selfish, and love is not. That grieving was okay, but allowing grief to close me off from others was a slow poisoning of my love for my father. That my love would be more true if I poured it out for others.”

“Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it,” he murmured, and she opened her eyes and looked at him. He met her gaze steadily, and she saw that he did understand. He lowered his head, and—gently, so _gently_ —traced her scars with his lips. She thought it was the most intimate kiss he’d ever given her, and had to wipe the tears from her eyes. He raised his head again, and smiled at her, before returning his hands to their slow path along her arm. She smiled back, weakly, and let her head fall on the pillow. Her voice was slightly hoarse when she continued.

“I don’t know that his words were astoundingly insightful. Or even wholly true. But they, he, made an impression. I decided then that I wanted to be a doctor, though I originally thought a physician. I didn’t even know what pathology was. But it was the first time I felt like I really _wanted_ something, since Dad had died.”

 

Sherlock had finished his examination of her body, and now sat looking down at her with an openness of expression that still, even now, never failed to surprise her.

“I think your priest was a very wise man,” he said seriously, then added with a smirk, “for a cleric.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “You can’t fool me, Sherlock Holmes. ‘Dismissive of the virtuous,’ my arse.”

“Your arse is exceedingly virtuous. I should know,” he said, and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. She giggled, then grew serious.

“I’m glad. That neither of us—that we’re both—“ he stopped her, a gentle finger over her lips.

“I have wished for death more times than I can count. Flirted with death. Even brought death upon myself, again and again and again. The fact that I am not dead—that I found John, and Mary, Mrs. Hudson, and Rosie, and Lestrade, and _you_ —that, consequently, I no longer wish for death, could never wish for death—it’s almost enough to make me believe in a God.”

He kissed her again, and again, and Molly smiled against his lips and through the burning in her eyes. She drew him down and held him, and was glad they had waited so long to be intimate. Glad that they had built the trust and comfort in each other, allowing them this conversation.

Sherlock leaned over and switched off the light, and they held each other in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, please read and drop a comment.


End file.
